She likes happy movies with sappy endings, and knows herself too well to ever get popcorn, but I'm just as glad she never has to clean butter off her fingertips; this one time bees kept landing on my hat, like, where's the good stuff, except that was watching her hair dry after the shower, looking down at the book she was reading out loud: it was a story about Ireland, and that's all I remember, unless it was Scotland, someplace green with lots of hills, because her hair carried the stars and they fell as it dried and it was a lazy summer day, too fit for thinking.

She likes Ohio. I'd call her a nutcase, but I like Wisconsin. I smell Chicago in our future.

Actually, I smell her cooking, something vegetarian, something whose ingredients she'll keep secret until I tell her I like it. She cares. I like it -- she doesn't have to say anything, so it makes me feel special to realize that again, and when she makes me exercise. She looks good in a one-piece. And her hair gets wet again.

I bet she'd think I overdo the hair thing, if I ever said anything. But maybe it's like the cooking thing. Maybe I should say I like it when she cooks in some way that's about something other than food.

She likes garage sales, too, but she makes me let the little kids get all the cool toys.